He leaves in his wake a nation divided, unsettled, abnormally pessimistic and uncertain of its place in the world

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Justin Trudeau engineered his departure as Liberal leader and prime minister Monday in a manner typically calculated to be most beneficial to himself.

After nine years in office, he won’t have to face an angry electorate or an election he seemed certain to lose by a humiliating margin. He won’t have to endure a confidence vote, or answer for the crater in which he’s leaving his party, some 25 points behind the Conservatives and leaking support with each passing day. He can claim he wasn’t driven from office but chose to step aside of his own volition, though obviously still reluctant to depart. And he won’t have to disappear immediately into retirement, but, thanks to the prorogation granted him by the Governor General, can enjoy three more months at the top while the party scrambles to organize a competition for his successor.

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His resignation speech delivered outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa showed a man as fully enamoured of his own qualities as at any time since becoming Liberal boss more than a decade ago.

“As you all know, I’m a fighter,” he declared.

“Every day since 2015 I have fought for Canadians, for you … I will always be motivated by the best interests of Canadians.”

He blamed his situation on political opponents rather than any of his own actions. Conservatives have been playing “petty politics,” disrupting and paralyzing Parliament while demanding he hand over documents he refuses to deliver.........

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